USA As Represented by Secretary of the Navy

Kenneth A Klicker

Robert E Newnham

Leslie E Cross

Leslie J Bowen

James V Biggers

A broad bandwidth electro-mechanical transducer is shaped into a wedge of varying thickness, with a plurality of PZT elements or sheets embedded in an inactive polymer. The transducer is driven at frequencies corresponding to resonance of the thickness dimensions. The piezoelectric elements with different thicknesses are decoupled mechanically from one another using an inactive polymer of low Q so as to prevent interference.

Broad bandwidth composite transducers

A composite of PZT (Lead Zirconate Titanate) and a compliant polymer matrix aving 3-1 connectivity (i.e., in a diphasic material, one of the two phases is continuously self-connected in all three mutually perpendicular directions and the second phase is self-connected only along one of the three mutually perpendicular directions) and fabrication method thereof is described. An array of parallel PZT rod elements is embedded in a mechanically compliant polymer matrix with their axes along the direction of the poling electric field. Such a composite has a high value of g.sub.h, d.sub.h and g.sub.33 with very little sacrifice in the value of d.sub.33.

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Whitehall, PA, United States of America

Kenneth A Klicker